


And time stood still

by WahlBuilder



Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 19:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11629917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: It's time of mourning, and Sabtah goes to find his bond and try to comfort him.





	And time stood still

Sabtah couldn’t say what had awoken him, an empty sensation in his chest or the emptiness of the bed. Their duties meant that they had to leave their shared bed often without rousing the other, and it’s not that Gammadin slept that much, but Sabtah at least managed to make his bond rest often enough to take pride in it.

Now, he felt, judging by the hollow hunger in his chest—and echo of the other’s feelings—it was a different kind of unrest.

The unrest that repeated each year. Sabtah could—and _did_ —measure time by that particular kind of unrest. Time was a strange thing when you lived in space, it was a stranger thing still in the Empyrean, but regardless of that Gammadin somehow knew…

Oh, he knew.

Sabtah sighed, sat up, and lowered his bare feet to the floor. Gammadin felt distant, he always closed himself away from his bond on this day, but even then the hollow feeling echoed back to Sabtah, so terrible it was, never relenting with age. Sabtah contemplated leaving him alone with his grief. He couldn’t do anything about it, never.

But the very thought, the very image of Gammadin siting in that quiet room, all alone, silent and still like a statue, was too much.

Recirculated air barely moved over Sabtah’s skin: the ship knew its master’s state today, and was quiet, too.

Everything would be quiet today, and the warband would wonder why everything slowed down. Why their Khorsaad was not seen today.

Sabtah got up and padded out of the bedroom. All was still and dark, and he didn’t need light to see. He could find his bond anywhere—and today, he knew where to find him. Today, and on the same day the next year, and the next, and the next, Gammadin would spend in the same place.

Ridiculous, Sabtah thought, to feel jealous of a man who had been dead for thousands of years. And yet, every year on the same day Sabtah woke in their empty bed with the same hollow feeling that was not his, and that hollowness filled with his own jealousy.

He walked the silent halls of their fortress, strewn with bits of armour, broken weaponry, skulls, bones, and other trophies of their many centuries of wars, their shapes robbed of any distinction by darkness. Some of it crushed under his feet. It stung, splintered bones dug themselves into his skin, for he did not bother with clothing or boots, but that minute pain was nothing compared to the keen hollowness in his chest.

He could not bear it, and so it carried him further, further.

On and on he went, to the place that was visited only once a year; on and on, and the halls around him became empty, hollow, his steps, soft as they were, leaving a lingering echo.

The ache in his chest—not his own, but his own at the same time—grew stronger still until it felt as if his primary heart would give up—and then, when he soared to the heights of pain, the last hall ended with an archway. It was simple, that arch, unadorned, and so low Sabtah had to bow to get through. When he did, his hearts, pierced with pain, started beating faster.

The room behind the archway was just as simple, and very small. It had no windows, and the ceiling was low and curving, sloping gently into the wall opposite the arch. In the middle of the room stood a simple low stone bench where Sabtah’s bond sat. The slope of his back made a soft keen break out of Sabtah’s voice.

Gammadin did not move, still and silent, and anger flared in Sabtah for an instant and died just a quickly. He moved around and seated himself on the bench, too, and pressed his shoulder to Gammadin’s. Gammadin’s skin was thick like a carapace, so he did not feel warm to the touch even when he was naked like now, but Sabtah liked the feeling, the thick, impenetrable skin—another layer of protection for his bond. Sabtah was always running warm for the both of them anyway.

At last Sabtah looked at the other prominent object in the room, the one that held Gammadin’s unwavering attention. The one for which Gammadin came here every year.

Mounted on the wall was a giant war hammer, and a thicket of candles, tall and slim, squat and thick, illuminated it from the floor. It was a beauty, that war hammer, slender, considering the man who it had belonged to once; its haft was big enough for a two-handed grip; its blunt head was covered with golden engravings, swirling patterns that reminded Sabtah of markings on sand; the hammer’s beak had a downward curve that could make any artist cry at its perfection.

It was beautiful.

It had belonged to Monomachus.

Tales said the hammer had been crafted from secret metals that did not exist anymore. Sabtah knew that engravings on the head had been made by Gammadin himself. That the hammer had been a gift from Gammadin to his bond.

It was the only thing that remained from Monomachus—if one didn’t count many scars on Gammadin’s body, and Gammadin’s memories.

Sabtah remembered Monomachus: he had been younger than Gammadin, smaller, with a smile curving his lips near constantly—and Gammadin had smiled in turn whenever he had looked at his bond. Their relationship had been what most of the Blood Gorgons longed to have. Together, they were fierce and unbreakable.

The story was that, when Monomachus had succumbed completely to the taint of Chaos, Gammadin had been ashamed of it, and so he had ended Monomachus’s life.

Whoever believed that story was a fool, Sabtah thought, glancing at Gammadin. His bond’s dark gaze was riveted to the war hammer, and his lips were moving silently though Sabtah could not say whether Gammadin was talking to his lost love or praying.

The room was a crypt where Gammadin had buried a part of himself, and it was a chapel.

It could be understood. You never forgot your first bond if you ever lost them and survived through the loss. Not many survived. But it was not only about the bond of blood and exchanged organs.

Sabtah looked at the light, dancing like liquid on the hammer’s head, then sighed and wrapped an arm around Gammadin’s shoulder, pulled him closer—and his bond let him, breaking his stillness and going soft, pliant.

‘Your beard tickles,’ Gammadin grumbled. It was very unbecoming of his title, to complain like that, but Sabtah smiled, and knew he could take Gammadin out of this chamber at last.

‘Let’s go to bed. You will get cold here, sitting like that,’ he chided.

Gammadin stayed silent for a few moments, and Sabtah felt the hollowness fade, though it never truly went away.

Then Gammadin moved once more and put a calloused hand on Sabtah’s thigh. ‘Yes. Let’s go back to bed.’


End file.
